Politics & government > Political speeches in Scotland in 1890

22
FIRST SPEECH
speak together—of course perfectly peaceful in their hearing. Is it,
said Mr. Dillon,—is it right, and is it your intention, that the police
shall he ordered to charge those gentlemen with batons 1 That was
the first point. The second point was this. The meeting was a
meeting which the Government on its responsibility thought proper
to prohibit; but when the Government has prohibited a meeting, the
legality of that meeting has to be tried in a court of justice. How¬
ever, the practice of the police is this. They do not read the Riot
Act. They do not give warning to the meeting, but they rush with
their batons at the meeting, and they disperse it with violence.
Now, I say that both of those practices are gross illegalities—the
dispersing with batons, the ordering of a charge with batons—because
I am not sure that the police used them—they, perhaps, had more
sense than their officers—the dispersing of these six or eight gentle¬
men, and the dispersing of a meeting without notice, which is
peaceable, committing no violence against the law at the time, that
is, no palpable or visible offence against the law. Well, then, thirdly,
Mr. Dillon put this question. After a meeting has been broken up
by the police, and the people have taken to their heels, and when
they are overtaken by the police in running away, is it right, and is it
your intention, that these people, when overtaken, are to be batoned
and mauled by the police with their batons! Now, gentlemen, I
think I have given you fairly—I may not be accurate in every word
—but I am certain that I am representing the substance of three
questions put in my hearing to the Government. I myself followed
in that debate. I referred, I believe, to these three questions. I
pressed that the proceedings which Mr. Dillon condemned were
totally illegal and intolerable; but not one word of disavowal of
such practices could we extract from the Government, and therefore
it is, I say again, on this ground, as well as because of the other cases
which I have quoted, that the Government itself is the most perfect
master of law-breaking in all those cases.
The Insult of Absenteeism.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am bound to add this, that all this
harshness, all this brutality—for there is no word, in my opinion,
short of that, that gives a fair description of the spirit with which
these laws are administered in Ireland—all this brutality is crowned
with insult, and the insult is that of absenteeism. The absenteeism
of the Government is the grossest insult that can be inflicted upon
the people. I see that the Secretary for Ireland has been dealing